Zwift Academy Road Finish Line Survey results

Last week we invited Zwift Academy Road finishers to take our “Finish Line Survey” and share how they progressed during the Academy.

Now with over 1000 respondents, let’s talk about the results, which can be browsed live here.

Did You Improve?

For each of the three efforts (sprint, VO2, and threshold) we asked how riders would rate their performance on the Finish Line Ride vs the initial Baseline Ride. Here’s how they responded:

Nearly the exact same number of riders said they improved on the VO2 and Threshold efforts (around 70%). Interestingly, only 48% said they improved on the sprint. Why is that?

One reason: the sprint stats displayed in Companion and Strava don’t show fractional seconds, so if you got 23.4 seconds on your Baseline sprint and 23.0 seconds on your Finish Line sprint, it would still show 23 seconds regardless. So it’s possible people improved, but didn’t have the data to show it.

What about riders who did worse on the Finish Line ride? Approximately twice as many riders did worse on the Threshold effort than they did on the VO2 and sprint. That’s interesting. Is it because riders dug deeper on the earlier efforts and didn’t have enough left for the Threshold effort? Or some other reason? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Why Did You Improve?

Riders who said they improved on a particular effort were asked why they think they improved in this area. Here’s what they said:

“Better pacing and/or knowledge of segment start/finish points” was the top reason for Sprint improvements, and this isn’t a surprise. If you weren’t sure where to start your sprint in the Baseline Ride, starting it at the right spot would result in a significant improvement.

Unsurprisingly, “Better Recovery Between Segments” was a significant factor for all three segments (around 30% of respondents chose this as a factor). Based on how many riders we saw riding hard between segments (instead of riding easy and recovering as instructed in the ride description), it makes sense that riders would do a better job of going easy on the Finish Line Ride, recovering between segments so they could hit each section hard.

“Improved Fitness” was by far the most popular reason selected when asked why people improved on their VO2 and Threshold efforts, with around 69% of respondents selecting it.

In the end, due to how the Baseline and Finish Line Rides were set up, figuring how why exactly riders improved their times is next to impossible. There are just too many factors at play. But hopefully this data provides some insight to Zwifters and ZwiftHQ when it comes to judging fitness gains and planning future training.

Your Thoughts

Share below!

Eric Schlange
Eric Schlangehttp://www.zwiftinsider.com
Eric runs Zwift Insider in his spare time when he isn't on the bike or managing various business interests. He lives in Northern California with his beautiful wife, two kids and dog. Follow on Strava

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